Infuriating
by gloryblastit
Summary: The incident at the end of "When Doves Cry" part one from Albert's point of view.


Even as I grab him and see the fear on his face, the wide eyes, the sharply inhaled breath, and I can feel the soft skin of his wrists in my hands, even as this happens I feel the sharp revulsion of myself. He protests weakly and I can't even hear him, there is just this rage like some animal inside of me. I throw him against the wall, the shelves that hold all his photography supplies. He winces, closes his eyes, tries to get away from me but there is no where to go. And now I'm split. There's that little sober part, the little sane sober piece of me that asks, "What are you _doing?_ This is your son. Your son," That voice is disgusted.

He infuriates me, though. He doesn't listen. He just doesn't. I tell him to be home on time for dinner and he can't do it. I tell him not to see Joey or Angela and he lies to me. He says he isn't seeing them but I keep getting calls from Joey Jeremiah of all people to let me know what Craig is up to. I certainly wouldn't find out the truth from him.

He puts his hands up as I hit him with the book I'm holding, the scrap book, the photo album. So that's what he does with his time. Makes this perfect family book that I'm excluded from. I'm the one raising him after his mother deserted us. I'm the one providing him with the best of everything, top notch across the board. Everything he desires he gets. Expensive photography hobby, no problem. Best summer camp in all of goddamn Canada. Every gadget any kid could want he has. I work crazy hours at a highly stressful job so that he can have _everything_ and what do I get in return? I get rudeness. I get lies. I get nothing.

I am so angry with him I'm shaking. I grab him again and he tenses up, squeezes his eyes shut and I just shove him to the floor, the stuff from the shelves kind of crashing down around him. I'm so angry with him I can't see straight. That album. That-those lies. Ungrateful little fucking bastard. Everything is charged and red. I kick him hard, almost as hard as I can and he makes that noise, that grunt of pain. Still, that anger is there, alive, like some living terrorized creature in my hands. I kick him again, and again when he tries to get up. Lie to me? Go and see Joey and Angela behind my back? Disregard all of my rules? Disrespect. Like fucking hell. No son of mine will do that. He'll learn. I'll beat it into him.

He's given up. He lies on the floor and moves but doesn't try to get up and I kick him again, but with that last kick my anger spins out, like a tornado losing its velocity. He closes his eyes and he's crying, I can see it, see his tears just like when he was little and would fall off his bike or have a fight on the playground. He'd come to me then. Now he moves a little, in pain, and I stare at him for a second, terrified of what I've done. The anger comes back then but it is for myself. I leave the darkroom, leave him there.

Upstairs I'm sickened with revulsion, the feeling going inside of my cells, making me cold. What sort of a person am I? How could I do that to him? To Craig, the person I love most in all of the world. I have so little control over my anger and my actions. At work everything is so tightly controlled, so highly stressed, and I'm wound so goddamn tight I could scream. At home the least little thing sets me off, cups without coasters, things out of place, lights left on. Those things make me want to hit him. Those things are nothing.

I'm afraid to go downstairs again, afraid of just how bad I hurt him. There could be internal injuries. Broken bones, hairline fractures. Bruises. The bruises on him, which I see from time to time, fill me with such a deep shame I could almost kill myself. What sort of a person am I?

I am, above all, a rational person. Analytical. Part of me is, anyway. I have to be for my profession, my career. So what in the hell is going on with this uncontrolled and uncontrollable violence? What are all the little parts that make up this dysfunctional whole? Do I associate Craig with his mother, Julia, who I hated before she died because she left me? Is some of that negativity being transferred to Craig? Am I taking out the stress I feel at my job and with raising him alone, am I taking that out on him? I don't know.

I sigh. He's still downstairs. I'll have to go down there, face what I've done. Down the stairs, slowly, hand lightly trailing the banister. I see the ruin that is the dark room, all his solutions for the photo development running out of the canisters, all the photos overexposed in the light. The rolls of film unrolled, blank and defective. The camera with the cracked lens. The photo album torn in half. Craig is on the floor, curled up in pain, his back against the shelves. He hears me coming and flinches away from me. I lick my lips and feel the utter hatred of myself that is like something thick and opaque.

His face is streaked with tears. It's the last of the sobbing, those hitching little breaths. He's scared, I can see it. Scared of me. I close my eyes for a second, feel the wave of disgust at myself and what I've done.

"Craig," I say, and he looks at me with his wide eyes, doesn't answer. He thinks I'm still angry. Maybe I am. Maybe I always am. Maybe it doesn't have as much to do with him as it seems.

"C'mon, get up," My voice is not loud but not gentle, yet. I'm not ready to come sucking for forgiveness, despite the black despair I'm feeling over what I did. Some perverted pride won't let me admit that I might have been wrong to beat him no matter how mad I was.

He sucks in his breath, and I see the fear in his eyes. I keep seeing it. It's there in a million different ways. He obeys, without question, and stands up despite the fact that it hurts him. He looks from me to the floor, from me to the wall, from me to the door, rapid little glances, and his breathing is shallow, eyes dilated. His pulse, if I were to take it, would be well over 100. I know what's going on inside his body due to pain and fear. High blood pressure. Fight or flight, except there was no where to go. He holds the side I kicked the most, guarding, protecting that side.

"Go to your room," I say in that not loud, neutral voice. I'm in control. He's in the wrong, still. Some bastard part of me won't let me fall to my knees and beg him to forgive me. Still the hitching sobs, tapering off. He moves slow but he moves. He'll listen now. I watch him with my trained doctor's eye. His breathing seems okay, but it concerns me. Wish I had a pulse ox machine at home so I could know for sure the rate of oxygen exchange in his red blood cells, to see that I haven't harmed his lungs. To see that I haven't cracked a rib. That could be serious. Pneumothorax. Jesus, what in the hell was I thinking? He's 14 for chrissakes.

He doesn't say a word, goes upstairs slowly. There's nothing to say, I suppose.

I've told myself in the past that it would never happen again, that I'd control myself. That I'd leave the room if I wanted to strap him or hit him. But the sick thing is it feels so good for just a second to let him have it. But that second of savage joy isn't worth the recriminations, the despair and the self-loathing. The absolute knowledge that I'm a reprehensible human being. I see the way he tenses up all the time, the way he looks at me cautiously, the way he jumps at noises and sudden movements. He's fucked up and I fucked him up. There's no way around that. All the money I make for him doesn't make up for that.

I want to go to him and apologize, to seek forgiveness like a penitent. To confess my love and sorrow to him. But I don't. I can't. I can't admit to him that I'm completely in the wrong. But he's in the wrong, too. He lies. He disobeys. He causes my anger. I'm under an extreme amount of pressure. There's only so much one person can take without cracking.

I won't see him for the rest of the night. That's the pattern. He'll stay in his room. That's fine. I'm not quite up for seeing him anymore tonight as it is. Sat at the kitchen table, the recessed lighting filtering down around me. I vowed anew to never strike him again, to never lay a hand on him in anger again. I couldn't. I simply couldn't. I could not control myself and I had to admit that. No matter what the provocation, I would not hurt him again. I loved him. I loved him so much. More than anything in the world.


End file.
